• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

Wings over Houston Airshow

highpockets

SOH-CM-2025
Interesting day yesterday.
A Messerschmidt ME-262 flying in a parade pass with a P-51.:jump:
A Mitsubishi A6M2 Model 21 Zero and a MIG-17F demonstrating their nimbleness in flight. :applause:
A T-33 (P-80) jet trainer.
A F-100F Misty Super Sabre demonstrating its booming afterburner and "come and get me" smoke trail.:redfire:
Of course the usual mix of wonderful WWII warbirds, demos and great S.E. Texas weather!
 
Interesting day yesterday.
A Messerschmidt ME-262 flying in a parade pass with a P-51.
A Mitsubishi A6M2 Model 21 Zero and a MIG-17F demonstrating their nimbleness in flight.
A T-33 (P-80) jet trainer.
A F-100F Misty Super Sabre demonstrating its booming afterburner and "come and get me" smoke trail.
Of course the usual mix of wonderful WWII warbirds, demos and great S.E. Texas weather!

.....I am drooling and envy you very much.......

I saw YouTube short flics of the Me262 restoration and first flight. I didn't realise she was in the U.S. Is she flying with the original Jumo engines or did the restorers replace them with more reliable jet engines? Jumos had enormous problems due to wartime lack of good quality prime materials in Germany for their turbines, not counting production pressures and impairments caused by Allied round-the-clock bombings.

A Schwalbe crash due to engine failure was everything but uncommon during wartime. I hope better engines, or at least seriously refurbished Jumos, were utilised. It would be a serious shame if an engine failure should wipe out this astonishing restoration result.

Did anyone film the event?

Cheers!
KH
:ernaehrung004:
 
Kelticheart
Check out the website. The aircraft has updated engines and safety equipment although there is no detail on the specific engine upgrade. The "Air Boss" did talk about how the USAAF got the ME-262 ( which all us nuts know about) by catching them landing or taking off. He also spoke about the issue of the original engines flaming out if the pilot gave it too much throttle on takeoff ( trying to get away from the attacking P-51! ). I will keep my eyes open for anyone who has video or photos( to sell of course). I have my amateur static photos of the A/C mentioned- no videos- but don't want to clog this site with them. PM me if you want.

http://www.collingsfoundation.org/ma_me262program.htm
 
Triple wow!

Kelticheart
Check out the website. The aircraft has updated engines and safety equipment although there is no detail on the specific engine upgrade. The "Air Boss" did talk about how the USAAF got the ME-262 ( which all us nuts know about) by catching them landing or taking off. He also spoke about the issue of the original engines flaming out if the pilot gave it too much throttle on takeoff ( trying to get away from the attacking P-51! ). I will keep my eyes open for anyone who has video or photos( to sell of course). I have my amateur static photos of the A/C mentioned- no videos- but don't want to clog this site with them. PM me if you want.

http://www.collingsfoundation.org/ma_me262program.htm

Holy Schwalbe!

This is not the one that I meant! I thought it was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjyIo8uRBDI

So, according to the Collings Foundation article, we have THREE airworthy Me262s in the world!

Simply amazing what warbird restorers can pull out of a pile of junk nowadays! :jawdrop:....and I am grateful for it!

Cheers!
KH
:ernaehrung004:
 
Gotta love and APPRECIATE the vintage shows while we still have the inventory. The grands and i went to a recent event this past September at Peachtree Dekalb Airport just a half mile from my house. They featured several Mustangs, Corsairs, a Dauntless DB, a couple of Texans in Mid '43 three-tone Navy warpaint, an A6M2 Zero, a B5N2 Kate and a few others we didn't get to see that day. We got there much later that expected. These were all "oohs and awes" for the kids, but the real show stopper was -- wait for it --the B-17. After watching Redtails with my grandson a zillion times (his favorite WW2 A2A movie so far at 5), actually touching the bomber in a walk-around and inside tour gave him a better perspective. And my granddaughter absolutely loved the big girl! It was like a religious experience for her...LOL. They were amazed at the size of the bomb bay and the dummy bomb it held. I guess for their size and age it must have seemed like a large bedroom.

Watching the Corsair (aka "Skipper" from the movie Planes according to the kids) sneak up on the airfield in a high speed flyby, i was awed myself at its remarkably quiet growl. The pilot did a fast pass and a quick, high G climbing turn to show off some maneuverability. Unlike the beautiful Merlins of the Mustangs which can be heard approaching from a good distance, the Pratt & Whitney of the Corsair could barely be heard until it was almost directly over the field. I can now clearly see why the Japanese troops nicknamed this warbird the "Whispering Death".

Here's a shot of the kids with a Stang...

 
Lt.Col. Bill Kilgore ( Robert Duvall) in Apocalypse Now " I love the smell of napalm in the morning"
I love the sound of those Merlins and big Pratt & Whitney's in the morning. :applause:
I have taken three generations to the Wings over Houston show and have photos of them all each time in front of the SB2C Helldiver each time! ( 1989, 2012 and 2014. Grandson, great-grandson and my daughter.
 
With regards to the Me-262, and all others currently flying, none of them come from original airframes. They are all full-scale, very accurate reproductions, which were started by the Texas Airplane Factory and completed by Legend Flyers. Five were built in-all, which included two static (museum display) and three flyers. The Collings Foundation owns/flies one of them (which is based out of Ellington Field), Jerry Yagen/Military Aviation museum owns/flies another (based in Suffolk, VA), and the Messerschmitt Stiftung operates the third (based in Germany). All of these reproductions use the common/abundant CJ610 jet engine (the same as a Learjet). The CJ610's provide a lot more power than what is required, so they never use full-power (however, this also provides some safety margin, by having reserve power if needed). The reproductions were based on re-engineering and using an original two-seat example, WkNr. [FONT=&quot]110639[/FONT], as a guide, which was also restored to static display condition, at the same time, and has since been on display at the Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola.

Besides those, there is in-fact an original Me-262 currently in an advanced stage of restoration to airworthy, owned by Paul Allen/Flying Heritage Collection. This aircraft, when completed, will still be remaining about 80% original, and will be powered by newly-built Jumo 004 engines. The aircraft itself, WkNr. [FONT=&quot]500453, was obtained by the Allies at the end of WWII and sent to the U.S. for evaluation. After the USAAF was done with the aircraft it was passed onto Howard Hughes' company for further research. At the same time, it has been said that Howard Hughes tried to enter the aircraft in the Thompson Trophy race, but was denied from doing so, as the government was entering their P-80 into the race and didn't want the publicity/headlines to come out had the Me-262 won. After Howard Hughes and RKO pictures, the aircraft was obtained by Ed Maloney in 1955 and was displayed at the Planes of Fame Air Museum (Chino) until 2000, when it was purchased by Paul Allen for his Flying Heritage Collection. [/FONT]Over the last fourteen years the aircraft has been under restoration to flying condition and should be the next warbird arriving at the collection, completed and flying. The engines are set to be test-run this month. Although they look identical in appearance, the new-build Jumo 004 engines have been made of modern, higher-strength metals than the originals, and manufactured using modern techniques, with the thought being that they'll be able to get hundreds of hours out of the engines before overhaul (I think the originals were only likely to get to 40-hours max). One can probably only being to imagine the millions of dollars invested in this project!
 
With regards to the Me-262, and all others currently flying, none of them come from original airframes. They are all full-scale, very accurate reproductions, which were started by the Texas Airplane Factory and completed by Legend Flyers. Five were built in-all, which included two static (museum display) and three flyers. The Collings Foundation owns/flies one of them (which is based out of Ellington Field), Jerry Yagen/Military Aviation museum owns/flies another (based in Suffolk, VA), and the Messerschmitt Stiftung operates the third (based in Germany). All of these reproductions use the common/abundant CJ610 jet engine (the same as a Learjet). The CJ610's provide a lot more power than what is required, so they never use full-power (however, this also provides some safety margin, by having reserve power if needed). The reproductions were based on re-engineering and using an original two-seat example, WkNr. 110639, as a guide, which was also restored to static display condition, at the same time, and has since been on display at the Naval Aviation Museum Pensacola.

Besides those, there is in-fact an original Me-262 currently in an advanced stage of restoration to airworthy, owned by Paul Allen/Flying Heritage Collection. This aircraft, when completed, will still be remaining about 80% original, and will be powered by newly-built Jumo 004 engines. The aircraft itself, WkNr. 500453, was obtained by the Allies at the end of WWII and sent to the U.S. for evaluation. After the USAAF was done with the aircraft it was passed onto Howard Hughes' company for further research. At the same time, it has been said that Howard Hughes tried to enter the aircraft in the Thompson Trophy race, but was denied from doing so, as the government was entering their P-80 into the race and didn't want the publicity/headlines to come out had the Me-262 won. After Howard Hughes and RKO pictures, the aircraft was obtained by Ed Maloney in 1955 and was displayed at the Planes of Fame Air Museum (Chino) until 2000, when it was purchased by Paul Allen for his Flying Heritage Collection. Over the last fourteen years the aircraft has been under restoration to flying condition and should be the next warbird arriving at the collection, completed and flying. The engines are set to be test-run this month. Although they look identical in appearance, the new-build Jumo 004 engines have been made of modern, higher-strength metals than the originals, and manufactured using modern techniques, with the thought being that they'll be able to get hundreds of hours out of the engines before overhaul (I think the originals were only likely to get to 40-hours max). One can probably only being to imagine the millions of dollars invested in this project!

Thank you very much Bomber_12th for your detailed reply! :encouragement:

It's always nice knowing these things for me. Unfortunately, I can only apprehend such info through this forum and Internet at large. Enthusiasm for aviation history, particularly for WWII, is not very common here in my country. Italy lost WWII (Thank God, if I may...), so airshows involving restored warbirds are quite a rarity here and warbird enthusiasts, outside of very exclusive Italian Air Force circles, are considered a bunch of loonies.

It also has to do with the fact that aircraft restoration and flight display involves considerable funds. We pay automotive fuel an average of 1.65 Euro a litre, 10 C. less for a litre of diesel fuel, I'm even scared to ask how much a litre of avgas would cost here nowadays.
I have a pretty good idea how much a pilot's private license costs, both to get it and keep it, to know it's quite a luxury here!

Even if on the very rare occasions the local Parma Aeroclub was able to organise an airshow at the local airport, people literally flooded the airport surroundings.
The first one I saw occurred over 10 years ago, during the celebrations of the Italian Air Force 75th anniversary foundation. On such occasion, we were able to see, among many modern aircraft, a spotlessly restored P-51D Mustang owned by a Swiss, a T-28 Trojan and a SNJ Texan/Harvard. I had the luck to find a place near the main hangar, I witnessed the Mustang engine start and warmup.

"A sound that no pilot, who flew a Spitfire, will ever forget!" (Pierre Clostermann)

Last year, we were lucky enough to hear again a R.R. Merlin engine singing, through the very brief flight display of the restored post-WWII two-seater Fiat G.59 trainer, owned by Mr. Pino Valenti. That was it, only twice in over ten years. :crybaby:

I am planning to attend, together with a friend of mine, to the Duxford Flying Legends Airshow 2015. A once in a lifetime event, I hope to be able to make it.

Cheers!
KH
:ernaehrung004:
 
Reply...

Bearcat241,

I love the pic with your kinds in front of "Swamp Fox" All that's missing are the goggles! :biggrin-new:
 
Yeah, that's my desktop background these days. They're two of my eight grands and these two are just plane-crazy, like the old man here. The little ninja you see there, Rocco, has been smitten with wings since he was four months old. Got him started on Top Gun videos and he's been an F-14 lover ever since. When they visit, we spend a lot of our time on the computer with flight sims and aviation videos on Youtube. Rocco is a real CFS2 addict and good stick for his age. In QC, we take the stick together, i make the moves and he's the trigger-man. He's a natural at close quarter deflection shooting.
 
Back
Top